Resolving Interpersonal Conflic

This is not really an interpersonal conflict. Maybe I would just like to get some of the thoughts from you, my dear readers. Sometimes, you may face the same problem when you have to make a decision like this.

I am a final year student. I am facing a problem to choose my FYP topic. There are two supervisors for me to choose. One is Prof Tan; the other is Prof Chen (the names are not real).

The good thing about Prof Tan is that his topics are relatively easier and his knowledge is not solid. The bad thing about him is that he is not a nice person as I have been taken some modules which conducted by him and I did not give a good impression to him as well. He likes to make simple things complicated and intend to make lots of troubles to his students. Although the topics were relatively easy, I was sure it will not be an enjoyable process. And the results may not be good also.

For Prof Chen, I only get to know him this year. He has a clear mind about his work so that his topics are really specific about something and it is very deep. To get a good result, I need to really work hard and get the work done properly which means a lot of time has to be spent on this project. He is strict to his student. The outcome of the work is everything, no matter how you get it done.

If you are the one who faces this situation, who are you going to choose? What strategies are you going to use to work with each one of them (i.e. how to improve the relationship with them?)? Also, you need to find a balance point for your FYP work and other work.

Effective Communication Skills

Developing effective communication skills is important to me as it helps me widen my current social networks, create new networks and it also enables me to understand others more effectively.

Friends play an important role in ones life, and I am of course not an exception. It is often easier if you can share some common interests and exchange ideas on an interesting topic when you want to make a friend and know more about a person. Here we need some skills like how to initiate a conversation, how to interest people in your area of interest and how to listen attentively and ask relevant questions etc.

In creating new networks, people need to know how to make use of the current network and develop new networks from that. The power of one man is limited. We have friends; our friends also have their friends. When one needs help, we should never restrict ourselves within the small networks that we have. We can always outsource from friends’ network or perhaps get to know new friends who are not at all linked to us. This seems quite difficult. However, if we can consciously develop our network, we can easily find somebody to help when the need arises.

Lastly, understanding others, sometimes, could be a difficult task. There are many communication barriers when it comes to dealing with people from different backgrounds. These differences could range from culture, religion, gender to personal traits. Here, we need to have some basic understandings with regards to the people we are dealing with. Also, we have to take note of the ways they communicate with us, such as gestures, actions and tones which may be very different from what we think or what we expect.

It is always easier to say than done. If we could stick to the skills of communication in our daily life, our lives would definitely be easier than before.